


A Martyr for me (this will hurt less if you just submit)

by NeverComingHome



Category: The Following
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-11 09:19:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1171362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverComingHome/pseuds/NeverComingHome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Spoilers for 2x03</p><p>Joe and Ryan make a compromise neither of them honors.</p><p>Contains: Ritualistic murder, torture, manipulation, and dubcon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The twins, _the boys_ , are foolish and young. His followers are like his flock and a good shepherd trusts, cherishes and nurtures his flock, but he cannot be fulfilled by them; they lack the humanity necessary to ground him. The twins, in all their earnestness, flank a chair in which Joe’s last remaining link to his old life sits. 

“We wanted to give you something,” one of them (Mark? Yes Mark) says, watching Joe’s face intently.

“How very kind.”

“Kill him,” Luke breathes, “we can watch, right?”

“Ryan and I need to have a little chat. I’ll call you in when I’m ready.”

“Yes, sir,” they chorus, so alike when anticipating a kill and yet easily slipping into the separate personas they’ve crafted for themselves. 

As soon as they’re gone Joe laughs, pulling a chair up next to Ryan and looking about the small dining room with its boarded windows and neatly set table. 

“What tangled webs we weave. One moment.” He takes the bottle of wine off the table and situates it between his legs while untying the rope around the other man’s wrists. Ryan’s face is bloody and beneath his shirt are probably enough misshapen bruises to imitate a topographical map. He’s glad they can dispense with the unpleasantness of a struggle. Ryan knows Mark and Luke are waiting just outside the door and the seemingly unending car ride told him all he needed to know about his chances of finding help. On top of that they’d thrashed him with all the anger they imagined Joe would’ve, even if he did manage to get out of the house he’d collapse soon after without any medical attention. 

Joe knows this and Ryan knows this which is why when he holds out the bottle Ryan concentrates on lifting his hand to take it. 

“Allow me, the least I can do.” He tilts a bit of the wine into the other’s mouth. “Children can be so impulsive when trying to impress their parental figure as it were.”

Ryan swallows before telling him flatly, “They could use a time out.”

“Quite. They have some fantasy of becoming one big happy murdering family unit.”

“Oddly said with disdain for someone who’s the leader of a killing cult.”

“Gah, this again!” Joe rolls his eyes and takes a swig from the bottle. “It’s not just about the killing, you know that, it’s the story it’s-it’s the drama that ordinary life needs to be injected with to counteract the mundane.”

“Oh cut the crap. You can be such a pompous-” Ryan’s sentence ends in a series of coughs and an overwhelming sensation of nausea. Right, he’d joined AA, is on the pills that counteract with alcohol, he was always double dosing himself and apparently they hadn’t worked their way through his system. He tilts forward, but Joe is there to hold him upright. His arms go around Ryan’s shoulder, a calloused hand on the back of his head as he presses his mouth to the side and hushes him into calming down. How long has it been since he’s held Ryan like this? Years, too many years. Before Ryan found out the truth they’d had an affair; whiskey kisses and gentle strokes that had never gotten rough even when they threw themselves into it like there was no time left in the world. 

They used to fall onto Ryan’s bed and bite down zippers while laughing into navels, it used to be blissful like that. 

“I’ve had enough drama,” Ryan chokes out, the sound of his ragged breathing thunderous in the quiet. “Those aren’t kids out there, Joe, they’re psychopaths who will slit your throat in a heartbeat if you go against them. They’ve got new recruits who don’t play by your rules.”

“I’m aware. We could cut a deal, you and I, I could cull the herd.”

“Or you could turn them all over then turn yourself in or get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Or we could compromise.” Joe pulls back from the hug, but keeps his hands firmly on Ryan’s shoulders. “I will hunt down every person who has shown me devotion.”

“For?”

“Your company?“ He smiles, showing the same white teeth that had bitten Ryan in struggle, the same smile he wore when destroying both their lives. Ryan thinks of kicking the leg of Joe’s chair and slamming his face repeatedly into the floorboards until he stops moving.

Then he thinks of scared little children locked in closets while bad men kill their parents and make light conversation with the corpses. 

~*~  
Joe tells Ryan that he told his followers Luke and Mark had discovered the identities of many among their number and intended on getting rid of all those they deemed unworthy. He suggested they retire to the established safe houses, carry on with their lives if they so wished or contact others for help until the twins and their mother were located. 

Joe tells Ryan that as his followers respond, they will make ripples and those the FBI cannot catch on their own Joe will do his best to establish contact with. When they were caught it could all be pinned on the twins and their mother, neat and tidy. 

Joe tells Ryan that in order to sustain this lie the three must be taken care of. Permanently. Less than a week after their escape Joe invites him to a warehouse to see three bodies strapped neatly to three tables. Ryan stays just outside the light of the caged bulb illuminating the still breathing family. He sees Joe’s head on floorboards, blinks and sees Joe’s head on the pillow next to his, smiling in his sleep. 

“I rather thought you wouldn‘t have the stomach to come. I will finish them as quickly as I can, no need to draw it out ”

“Don‘t pretend you aren‘t enjoying it.”

The light flickers and Ryan notices that one of the twins has had his eye gouged out. Joe notices and picks up a scalpel. “I do love this, but I love you more. I‘ll prove to you that I can be a better man if I must spend the rest of my life apologizing for what‘s happened. For Claire.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me this has nothing to do with Poe or your addiction to witnessing a ‘transcendentally beautiful death‘.” Ryan ignores the ball of grief and rage roaring in the depths of him. “Swear to me on your wife’s grave that these are the last people you’ll ever murder.”

Joe swears, without missing a beat, and it’s the first lie he’s told since they’ve stopped trying to kill each other. Common sense tells Ryan to not trust a man holding a bloody scalpel, but Joe’s voice echoes off the walls and drowns it out. 

~*~  
Things don’t happen in a day. Joe wants to show up on Ryan’s doorstep with dinner and a movie, sneak into his apartment and clean up the mess of files accumulating as he takes on new cases, leaving only a piece of paper with a star on it behind. He’s forgotten how to not be obsessive, but in his defense Ryan still ignores what he doesn‘t want to see. Joe sends a postcard when he has information, but Ryan has to come for it himself, the detective has fed the department Joe’s story and convinced them his contact is an important member of the cult willing to be a snitch. The agreement is that when Ryan comes to visit Joe doesn’t talk until he’s ready. 

The house is big, in the middle of nowhere and in need of upkeep, but Joe is still restless. At least in solitary confinement he was able to talk to his people, but he’s supposed to be in hiding again making Ryan his primary means of entertainment. And so they drink virgin cocktails, cook, tackle two man jobs, or gossip then sit in the living room and ruin people’s lives. 

“How goes the sobriety?”

Ryan holds up his glass of soda as if in answer and shrugs. “Not bad. I feel…”

“Reanimated.”

“New, yeah, like I don’t know who I was before I stopped drinking.”

Joe shifts a little closer to him on the couch. “I’m proud of you.”

Ryan knocks back the rest of his drink like a shot. Old habits. “You? Felt like stabbing anyone’s face with a medical instrument lately?”

Joe chuckles. “No.”

“Liar.”

Joe is quickly discovering how much he preferred a drunken, easily manipulated Ryan over this sober and clear headed one. 

“I’ve been channeling my urges into more productive endeavors.” He slips a hand beneath the back of Ryan’s shirt. “As well as less productive, but nonetheless relaxing ones.”

Ryan all but leaps into a standing position, snapping his briefcase closed and double checking the files on his cell while recapping what they’ve gone over. Joe nods, tapping his feet while trying not to scowl like a deprived teenager. It would all be so much simpler if he could press a cloth over Ryan’s mouth and brainwash him into believing that the most natural thing on earth is to be in a committed relationship with a serial killer who is polite enough not to bring his work home with him. 

After six months of friendly conversation Joe can sense the end of the line is coming. Soon he will be out of followers and Ryan will have no reason to visit him. Without the lure of a relationship or intel he knows the temptation to turn him in, should he choose not to leave the country, will be too much for a protagonists’ conscience. He can only imagine the loops Ryan’s mind and heart are leaping through to continue their little arrangement, but sooner or later both will tire and surrender to Ryan’s instincts. 

Joe simply has to make sure that Ryan’s instincts evolve before then.

~*~  
“You’ve been very patient.” Joe tosses the struggling woman onto the cell floor. “Show me what you‘ve learned.”

Mark nods, pulling his eye patch down to squat in front of his kill. “I’ll make you proud.”


	2. Chapter 2

The newly laid bricks covered Derren from the eyes up and to the waist down so the focus was on his torn apart abdomen which had been made home for the body of a yellow eyed black cat . When the first officers arrived on scene the ticking melted in with the ringing in their ears at the sight when it fact it came from beneath the floorboards. 

“How many?”

“Four hearts in total. They’re running trace on the clocks found in them which were set to different hours. Derren was a taxidermist, one heart was his, but the hearts were from his collection and belonged to three missing girls.”

“Fascinating.” 

Ryan doesn’t follow Joe into the house just yet, leaning against the railing of the porch with his hands in the pockets of his slacks.

“Let me walk you through it.” 

Two people were involved. One was a dark skinned woman who was invited into the house. The next door neighbor while fiddling with his sonic ear in the backyard confirmed a southern accent and that Derren sounded excited to see her, but the only unaccounted phone call was from a payphone a mere hour before her arrival. Her accomplice was a man with a bandaged face (“Like a mummy pirate” the little girl told her mother who told the officers) who briefly rolled down the window of the tinted car (found crushed in a junkyard) to throw out a cigarette butt. The murder took place boldly in the afternoon and the cause of death was courtesy of a cocktail of ingredients found beneath kitchen sinks across the country. Derren’s own tools were used to empty his chest and the cat, like the hearts, came from his studio. 

“They did their homework.”

Ryan takes his gun from his holster and flicks the safety off. “We found your book among his things, it’d been there a while. Come on, let’s take a tour.”

Joe lets out a breath of a laugh. “Is that necessary?”

“Stalling isn’t going to make this better for yourself. Hands behind your back.”

Joe turns around and Ryan cuffs him, lowering the gun only slightly as Joe leads the way through every room of the house. Ryan makes him lie down flat before tapping walls and floorboards and checking the ceilings for breaks in the pattern of dust. When they’re finished with the house he gets into the car and makes Joe walk in front of it while driving as far out into the sticks as they can before parking and carrying on by foot. Before he’d brought Joe out he’d taken photos of the surrounding area and compares them as they go along. 

It’d been hell walking into that briefing and he’d raised a shitstorm about having to find out that way, but Mike had reminded him how he was lucky to even be in on the case. Hackles continued to be raised over the fact that he hadn’t vetted his source. 

“What are you saying?” 

“He’s done a lot worse to people who would still follow him off a cliff. I traced the ip of someone jizzing themselves over him on a message board and it was the mother of one of his victims.”

He spent time with Max, reminded himself he has family, people who have reached out to him for reasons other than getting a first hand account. The day before Derren’s body was found he’d sat in the back of an AA meeting arguing with three people about kung fu movies which eventually lead to a discussion about whether climbing Everest had become passé. Ryan knows there’s more to life than death and Joe Carroll and yet each always reminds him of the other. 

By the time they make it back to the house it’s late and Ryan is very nearly seeing double. Refusing to be distracted by conversation the lack of involvement in the murder on Joe’s part means a whole new set of problems. Joe invites him to stay over to talk about in the morning. There are guaranteed to be at least three more deaths and whether from a copy cat or from one of his own Joe is the first and last of expertise on the matter. 

“I’ll make you some tea, I never thought I’d be one for herbs but I’ve found they are quite handy to have around.”

Ryan nods, absentmindedly scratching at his chest before taking off his jacket, dropping clothes on his way to the bathroom. He dons one of Joe’s robes and walks into the guest room to find its owner seated on the edge of the bed with a mug in hand. 

Ryan stays in the doorway and makes a gesture. “After you.”

“Only if you stop hovering.”

He sits beside Joe and watches him down nearly half of it before grabbing it away from him, informing him he’d make a horrible taste tester. It’s good, strong, not that Ryan knows anything about it. He knows that at his first sip there were two hands worth of space between them, but by the time he gets to the bottom of the cup Joe is whispering something into his ear. Ryan wonders if he’s been replying at all or if the other man has simply gone off on one of his tangents like he did when they were seeing each other. During the day Ryan could keep up with him, but at night Joe’s mind worked at the same capacity which had left Ryan with no choice but to stress how much sleep meant to a cop who worked regular three day stakeouts. 

Contrary to popular belief there are ways of shutting up Joe Carroll and none of them involve talking. 

“…back and forth, back and forth so the story goes. I’ve never put much stock into hypnotism.”

A hand in his lap, when did Ryan’s robe part? He can’t remember. He isn’t holding the mug anymore either and can’t remember setting it down. He gasps, fingers in Joe’s hair as it dances across his vision, hand and mouth bringing Ryan off. The robe is off his shoulders now and Ryan is coming with Joe’s mouth on his stomach whispering, “back and forth, back and forth.”

~*~  
He doesn’t remember the dream until he’s on his way to the kitchen. Joe is reading the paper Ryan brought up with him yesterday and nursing a cup off coffee. He informs Ryan with unbridled amusement that he’d fallen asleep while Joe was talking and he hadn’t wanted to disturb what looked like a most enjoyable dream.

“I used your phone to look up the herb, it’s a natural sedative that counteracts with your medication. I’m sorry I didn’t think to check beforehand.”

“It’s fine.” Ryan takes a seat at the table. “Best sleep I’ve had in a while.”

“I should think you’d be fine without it at this point in your recovery.”

Ryan hooks a finger through the handle of Joe’s mug and brings it towards him with a smirk. “You may be onto something. Hand me my briefcase will ya?”

~*~  
A couple postcards later Ryan takes the leap and tosses the pills for good. nto the back of his medicine . On their last visit Joe told Ryan he’d been contacted by one of his more wealthier followers who had attempted to persuade him into moving with her and a few choice others to a home on her family’s estate. When Ryan shows up again Joe tells him the mansion had finally been set up and promised complete freedom to continue with his plans until Luke and Mark were caught. 

“She’s sending someone for me. I gave her the address to an abandoned farm and told her that should I not be there to send whoever it is back.”

Ryan calls it in and shouldn’t be surprised when he’s uninvited from the tail, but is. The potential to be their biggest hit and he’s shut down before he can unlock his car door.

“This is my case!”

“No, it isn’t. You’re a glorified consultant until someone here can verify your informant.”

“Since when are you a stranger to cutting corners?”

“Since when do you take mini vacations to a summer home nobody knows about in the middle of a case? Believe me, I’m still cutting corners for you.”

Ryan brings his fist down hard on the roof of his car as the line goes dead. When he turns around Joe is holding a mug of tea, but Ryan is craving something much stronger. 

~*~  
Joe told Ryan that if he insisted on breaking his sobriety he wouldn’t join him, but he does sit across from him and pour the shots. The first makes Ryan want to throw up, but he gets it down and by the second his tongue has numbed and he’s ready for a third. For some reason the sight of Joe scowling at him makes it seem okay. Anything Joe disapproves of can’t be that bad after all. He’s been playing the game for too long letting other people take credit when it’s him who tamed Joe Carroll. Ryan Hardy had turned a notorious serial killer into the likes of a put upon spouse. He snorts at the thought.

He wonders if it’ll always be this messed up between them and if a relationship with the real Joe has to consist of one of them driving the other into the ground. Joe doesn’t say “I think you’ve had enough”, only puts the bottle on the floor and pushes the mug of cold tea into Ryan’s hands just as his phone goes off. He frowns at the message.

“Antoinette has given me the location of the mansion. Shall I text your partner?”

“I don’t have a partner, give it here.”

“You’re drunk, Ryan, let your men take care of this.”

But they’re not his men, they’re not his anything. After all he’s done and all he’s lost fighting a battle whose end is in sight, thanks to him, he’s no more above suspicion than anyone else. The last thing he remembers is lunging for the phone.

~*~  
He wakes up handcuffed to Mike‘s radiator with a raging headache and a kink in his back.

Antoinette and her guests were found locked in a study with the statue of a figure cloaked in red that emitted nerve gas. Mike found him slumped outside the door with scratches on his face.

Help me help you. From the other side the words aren’t all that comforting. Sneaking into the mansion, spotting the “red death” allusion, trying to reason with them and getting into a scuffle sounds like something he’d do drunk, but locking them into that room with the sealed vents doesn’t. He’d made plans with Max who called Mike when he didn’t show up and they’d managed to locate him before anyone else arrived on scene.

Mike lays out the photos of Ryan at the crime scene and tells him that his job be damned if he ever sees Ryan at the precinct again because he’d turn them over. He’d already convinced his boss that Ryan’s informant had been one of those killed and falsified the information. The girl they’d followed back to the mansion agreed to be vetted and is in protective custody. 

"I fucked up, alright? But I didn't let those people die and I sure as hell didn't kill Derren.”

“And if I didn't believe you i would be letting you go, but if I were you I’d make sure I had an airtight alibi for when the next body turns up and get rid of whatever is in that summer house.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title snitched from "Toy Soldiers" by Marianas Trench


End file.
